Wednesday, September 24, 2014

Nobody is oppressed like a white evangelical Christian

It's a damn shame the Gazette changed its commenting platform, thus erasing all that came before, because the bottom half of news stories about gay marriage used to be filled with the plaintive cries of the real oppressed minority in this country: white Christians.

And since Colorado Springs is nicknamed "the Evangelical Vatican," you're probably interested to know that a recent poll conducted by the Pew Research Center reveals that an astounding 50 percent of white evangelical Christians say "there is a lot of discrimination against" white evangelical Christians. This is more than against blacks, Muslims, Hispanics, atheists and Jews, notes The Daily Banter.

"However, this will not come as a surprise to anyone who’s been paying attention to the grumblings from evangelical circles about their phantasmagoric plight in an increasingly secular society," Michael Luciano writes. "This narrative, which has been spoon-fed to them for decades by self-serving preachers, politicians, and pundits, enables white evangelicals to interpret measures designed to stop discrimination against others as actually being discriminatory against the evangelical way of life. ...

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"This is the white evangelical persecution complex quantified. Despite all the religiosity that’s so readily apparent in public life — 'In God we trust' on the money, the National Prayer Breakfast, 'God Bless America' signing off every major presidential speech, the continued use of 'So help me God' at the end of the presidential oath of office despite nothing of the sort appearing in the oath in the Constitution, the existence of a congressional chaplain, the Ten Commandments still cropping up on public property across the country, the political death sentence that would be incurred by most politicians who publicly declare their atheism, the presence of nativity scenes on public property during Christmastime, the nauseating political pandering to ignorant creationists, the treatment of gay people as second class citizens because the Bible says so — it is the white evangelical Christians who think they suffer above all others."

And, of course, we run into this aggrieved subsection every time we report anything about the Military Religious Freedom Foundation or the intrepid evangelizers at the U.S. Air Force Academy. Just read some of the 58 comments on this post.

Thankfully, there's hope, says Pew: "Nearly three-quarters of Americans (72%) now say that religion is losing influence in American life, the highest share to hold this view in Pew Research surveys going back to 2001."